Mountain, page 11
She didn’t like being weak and hated the thought of being perceived as weak by others, even though Mountain would immediately deny viewing her that way. Still, in her current physical state, it was hard not to feel weak. If she were in a losing battle of some kind, she wouldn’t like it. It was a good ten minutes before the door opened again, and, expecting it to be Sydney, Amelia was surprised when Mountain walked in.
He had a plate heaped full of food. The minute she looked at it, her stomach started to rumble. He nodded. “You’re hungry. That’s good, right? I can hear it clear over here.” She must have been giving off some cantankerous vibes because he shook his head. “Come on. Time for sharing a good meal among friends, not fighting,” he muttered.
“Yeah, well, if I had some good friends here, I might consider that. In the meantime, I don’t have that option, so touché.”
He nodded, then shrugged and didn’t say anything.
She glared at him. “Are you always like this?”
“No, not always, but I really do work at it.”
Such honesty filled his tone that she almost cracked up laughing. “Really?” she asked in a dry voice. “And here I thought being irritating came to you naturally.”
“Oh, no, I have to work at it really hard. Just ask Teegan.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “I would love to, but nobody’s allowed me to talk to Teegan yet. Remember?” Her tone had a definite bite to it.
He eyed her and nodded. “That’s a good point. Do you want to talk to him after dinner?”
“Yes, of course,” she said immediately.
He pulled out his phone and apparently sent his brother a text message. “He’ll come by after dinner,” Mountain stated, reading Teegan’s response.
“Fine.” Amelia sighed, as she sagged back. “I haven’t had any food yet either.”
“And you will get some very soon. Sydney’s gone to get it. I would offer you some of this, but Sydney is very particular about what she thinks will be the best for you. I found that out the hard way, while Teegan was in that very bed for quite a stint himself.”
She looked ruefully at his heavily laden plate. “Which likely means something light, maybe soup or broth.”
“Do you think you can handle much more than that?”
She contemplated it and then shook her head. “Probably not.” She groaned. “Every time I think I’m doing better, something happens, and I’m doing worse.”
“I don’t think you’re doing worse at all,” he countered. “I think you’re impatient, and that’s always the dangerous time.”
“Why is that?” she asked, knowing that she wouldn’t like the answer.
“Because people tend to expect more out of themselves, and they do way more than they should because they think they’re on the mend or should be. What ends up happening is that they overdo it completely and set themselves back … or worse.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. I’ve seen it countless times, and, hell, I’ve done it myself. In your case, as low as your blood count was, you still can’t risk any bleeding. That’s why you feel so weak with any exertion at all. This time is an opportunity for you to sit back and relax. This is your chance to heal, and we want to make sure that you heal 100 percent, so you can come back to this frozen land that you love so much.”
She settled back down on her bed, studying him, stunned at the passion in his voice. “You love it up here too, don’t you?” she asked him.
“I’ve always loved the Arctic and being up here,” he murmured, “but, then again, I also love a nice warm sandy beach,” he added, with a big grin. “There’s room for all of it, you know?”
“There is, but it’s just been a whole lot easier for me to find acceptance up here.”
“Because there’s not all that much competition, I presume.”
“Meaning, I wouldn’t hold my own if there were?” she asked a little testily.
“God, no. Meaning that you wouldn’t feel you always have to be on guard,” he clarified. “Do you think I don’t see that? I don’t know whether it’s all because of your heritage and the bias you’ve encountered, or it’s all about that one guy you dated and you have become wary of all men.”
“Wary of all men,” she noted in a wry tone. “At least that’s how I would interpret it,” she murmured, seeing the shadow that crossed his face. “I’m sure some of your psychologists would come up with a million other things in addition to that.”
“Doesn’t matter whether they would or not,” he replied on a laugh. “It’s all about you and who you are, not about them at all.” Once again he’d completely surprised her, and she didn’t know what to say. He looked at her and laughed and asked, “Cat got your tongue, did it?”
“You keep surprising me.”
“Not meaning to,” he replied, with a shrug. “I’m just being me.”
“Being you is a gift though,” she admitted, “and it’s not one that I’m used to.”
“And that’s the problem,” he pointed out. “You’re expecting trouble, and there isn’t any, at least as far as I’m concerned. As long as I can keep you safe, I’m content. The minute I have to fight you over that, we’ve got a problem.”
She snorted. “So, what you’re saying is, as long as I do what you tell me to do, we’re fine, but the minute I don’t, then we’ve got a problem.”
He flashed her a bright grin and nodded. “Yeah, that works.”
“It doesn’t work for me,” she snapped, “particularly not long-term.”
“I didn’t say anything about long-term. I’m talking about while we get you back on your feet. It’s not any workable solution on a long-term basis. Besides, who wants a relationship with a dishrag?” Her jaw dropped at that, and he burst out laughing. “I know. I know. We aren’t there yet.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I understand. I absolutely surprised myself when I first figured it out. It’s definitely not where I thought I would be heading, but it’s hard to miss the connection.”
“It’s totally easy to miss the connection,” she argued. “I already missed it myself.”
At that, he burst out laughing. “You might be wishing that you missed it,” he replied, giving her a knowing look that made her blush, “but it’s perfectly obvious what’s going on between us to anybody willing to look.”
She sagged back on her bed, shaking her head. “I would have to be suicidal.”
“No,” he argued, “but you will certainly need to be your own person because I could never be with somebody who can’t be real.”
“I don’t think I can get much more real,” she muttered, “and you’ve already seen all the ugly bits.”
“I’ve also seen all the beautiful bits too,” he noted, with a big grin.
At that, she flushed a bright red and glared at him.
“Hey, we were trying to save your life at the time, and I really did try not to look.”
“Right,” she muttered, with an eye roll. “That would be so you.”
“Hey,” he said, with an almost injured air. “I pride myself on being an honorable man.”
“Yeah, right,” she replied, with a frown. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t look while you had the chance.”
“Honestly I was too busy trying to help Sydney staunch the bleeding that you were busy spewing out all over the floor, which was enough to drop me at any moment,” he pointed out. “Saving your life was the first priority. Keeping you warm was the second. You weren’t giving us any help on either issue,” he stated, “and that made our lives very difficult.”
She pondered that. “I guess I was in pretty rough shape, wasn’t I?”
“Pretty rough shape? No. Hell no. Not even close to that. You were two steps from death, and, if it wasn’t for Sydney being right here, I don’t know what medical care you would have gotten. She’s brilliant, and she’s kept everybody alive who could be kept alive. So, I certainly don’t begrudge her any minutes of spare time or supplies to do the job that she’s doing.”
“That’s really nice of you,” she admitted, surprised that he would even say that.
“This is a military clinic, not some fancy private hospital. Some of the brass always worries about costs,” he acknowledged. “Sometimes with justification, sometimes not,” he muttered. “Yet people still look at the budget and groan and complain. In your case, whatever it took, we were happy to try it.”
“I would be happy to think that you would help anybody to the maximum extent possible,” she murmured. “Not just me. Although I understand from your perspective the sense of urgency was higher, in case I knew anything as to what all was going on.”
He gave her a grave nod. “We would have helped anybody as much as we could, of course, yet you’re right. It was more of an issue for me personally because I needed to find out what was going on with my brother.”
“But you’ve had him for some time now.”
“Yes, we have him back safe and sound, and we owe you for that. However, we didn’t know whether you’d had anything to do with his original kidnapping.” She gasped, her eyes opening wide to stare at him, her jaw dropping. He nodded. “When you look at it from our perspective, we didn’t know who and what had created this issue in the first place.”
“Good Lord, is that why I’m under guard?” She spoke in a hushed tone, as her face ran through a series of multiple colors. “I … Am I a prisoner here?” she asked, shifting in the bed in outrage, trying to sort out the information that came through. Panic warred with fear that anybody could think such a thing.
“No. I certainly don’t think you had anything to do with it, but obviously there are questions.”
“Of course there are questions,” she muttered, as she sagged back slowly, wincing with pain as she finally managed to relax enough to look at him. “Let me talk to your brother, stat.”
“I know he really wants to talk to you, but I’ve been holding off. He’ll be here in a little while.”
“Why not call him right now? Or is it because you don’t trust me?” she asked bitterly.
“No, not at all. Honestly, I’ve been holding off because I didn’t want to trigger a relapse in either one of you.”
“What? Is he okay?” she asked immediately, her anger swept away by concern.
“He’s doing better every day, but he doesn’t have any answers either. And he’s still not 100 percent.”
“How can that be?”
“His recovery is going well, at least where his body is concerned, but he’s had a great deal of memory loss, which we’ve attributed to drugs involved in his capture, though we lack information on that.”
She winced. “Yes, I tried to keep him stable, plus tried to get information out of him myself. He kept telling me that I couldn’t take him back and couldn’t take him to the village, so I had to look after him and keep him alive on my own. In fact, … whatever information he had was important,” she added, suddenly frowning. “You need to get that out of him in some way.”
“You didn’t say anything about that before, about the information he had.”
“I didn’t remember anything about it,” she replied, “until now.” She groaned, as she collapsed back again. “Hell, for all I know, I did have something to do with his kidnapping.”
He got up, walked a few steps closer, and looked down at her. “Look,” he said in a soothing voice. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, and I can understand the frustration of not getting the information you need out of your brain right now. Maybe something is in there to get, or maybe not. The thing is, we won’t know until we know, and there will be time soon enough for that.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she muttered. “Please let me talk to him.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll go get him. I need to post another guard on the door first.” And, with that, he walked out of the room.
She expected him to come back immediately, but it was a good twenty minutes before the clinic door opened, and Mountain made his way back to her. The minute she saw Teegan, tears filled her eyes. She opened her arms, and he walked over and gave her a big hug, tears in his eyes as well.
“My brother has been keeping you all to himself,” Teegan noted, with a big cheeky grin, as he sat near her. “I think he’s jealous of our relationship.”
She snorted at that. “No, he’s trying to keep me isolated, you know, prisoner tactics, trying to find out what I know.” She had caught on to that, even if it wasn’t his intent.
At that, Teegan winced and replied, “Unfortunately, knowing him, … I think that is quite possible.”
“Oh, please,” Mountain said testily from the doorway. He had crossed his arms, watching them closely. “You two can bond over whatever the hell you want,” he muttered, “but I need to hear every word you say because neither one of you has the answers we need, and I’m hoping that, maybe together, … between the two of you, we can stir up those muddy memories.”
“And yet you held off letting me come in here,” Teegan noted, glaring at his brother.
“Yeah, and, if you take a good look, … you’ll realize she’s not going anywhere very soon. Look at her. The minute I see her energy drop or anything that looks suspicious about her condition, you’ll get your ass kicked out of here too.”
Teegan nodded. “That’s fair,” he admitted, as he turned to look at Amelia. “I am really glad to see you,” he said, as Mountain took up a seat at the end of the hospital bed, his arms still crossed as he glared at the two of them.
She wasn’t sure what was making him angry. Plus, she’s the one who should have been mad. Still, even as she thought about everything that had happened, she realized she lacked the energy to even consider it. “I didn’t have anything to do with Teegan’s kidnapping,” she muttered.
“Mountain knows that,” Teegan stated, looking at her in surprise. His gaze traveled to his brother, and he glared at the expression on his face. “I told you that she didn’t.”
“Yet you also can’t tell me who did. So, until that point gets resolved, we need to ensure that nobody gets a free pass. Not even Amelia.”
“I forgot what a hard-ass you could be,” Teegan muttered.
“You shouldn’t have,” Mountain snapped, brutally dark. “You know perfectly well what I’m doing is protocol, and we can’t unmake the rules just because we want to.”
Teegan winced. “I know, and next you’ll tell me that, if I wasn’t so emotional, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“That’s quite right as well, isn’t it? You are losing sight of the problems here, thinking with your—”
“I’m thinking with my heart,” Teegan admitted, cutting him off, and that earned him a hard stare. “This woman saved me, and I know perfectly well she had absolutely nothing to do with everything going wrong in my world. I know I had some vital information, but, whatever it was, … I can’t remember it. So apparently it’s still not enough to do us any good.”
“And yet it’s something,” Mountain said. “Keep in mind that we still have information coming in constantly. Right now, we have information coming in every ten minutes … literally.” As his phone buzzed, he pulled it out, looked at it, frowned, and tucked it away.
Teegan frowned at him too and pointed to his phone. “Like that?”
“Yeah, just like that. I’m trying to let it all jell in my brain before I do something about it because I still don’t have the proof that we need. I need to make this stick.”
“Do you know who did it?” Teegan asked, as he jumped to his feet and walked over to glare at his big brother. Mountain remained silent. “You’re not sharing?” Teegan asked.
“No, I’m not sharing,” he stated, staring at Teegan with the same indomitable look he’d used when Teegan was growing up. “No way I’m letting you go off half-cocked.”
“I wouldn’t go off half-cocked,” he declared, glaring at his brother. “I’m not a kid anymore, and you’ll have to let me grow up some day.”
Mountain’s eyebrows shot up. “Presumably on a day when you don’t find yourself kidnapped and lost out in the middle of the Arctic, huh?”
At that, Teegan rolled his eyes. “You can’t upset me because I know everything you do and say is really based in love, despite how it may sound. Thus it’s pretty hard to argue with you,” he muttered, as he turned back toward Amelia. “He really is a good guy.”
Amelia nodded. “I don’t have a problem with that. And since I don’t have as many answers as I would like either, I can’t really argue with him. In that, at least, he is right.”
“And yet you did argue with me,” Mountain added in a casual voice. “Still, you’ve given us a lot more information on various people than we had.”
“Really?” Teegan turned to look at her. “Did you see what happened?”
She shook her head immediately. “No, I didn’t, not with you, but I’d seen things out there before, and I’d watched you guys from a distance quite a bit. I couldn’t really identify who anybody was, but still …”
“Right.” Teegan nodded. “From a distance it’s hard, isn’t it?”
“And yet mannerisms and movements, posture and the way people walk, are all quite literally identifiable,” Mountain agreed, as he turned to Teegan. “She saw somebody line up a shot intended for Elijah.”
Teegan stared at his brother for a long moment, then turned to look back at Amelia. “I think in that case, you probably did make a mistake,” he murmured softly. “Elijah doesn’t go out.”
“It was him,” she declared. “I have seen him out, not on a regular basis—there you are correct—but he did go out occasionally, and I can say that with certainly. A couple times, on rare occasions, I’ve even seen your colonel out there.”
